Aventail Corporation

SonicWALL Inc

Type	private company
Industry	Network Security, security appliances, Internet security, WAN optimization
Founded	1991
Founder	Sreekanth Ravi, Sudhakar Ravi
Headquarters	San Jose, California
Key people	Bill Conner (CEO)
Products	Next-Generation Firewall; UTM; firewalls; VPN; wireless security; security appliance filtering spam, spyware, viruses and other malware
Revenue	US$265 million (2011)
Owner	Francisco Partners and Elliott Management
Number of employees	1000 (December 2011)
Website	www.sonicwall.com

SonicWall, originally a private company headquartered in San Jose, California, and Dell subsidiary from 2012 to 2016, sells a range of Internet appliances primarily directed at content control and network security. These include devices providing services for network firewalls, UTMs (Unified Threat Management), VPNs (Virtual Private Network), and anti-spam for email. The company also markets information subscription services related to their products. The company solutions also serve to solve issues surrounding HIPAA and PCI compliance issues.

On March 13, 2012, USA Today said that Dell had announced its intent to acquire SonicWall, which then had 130 patents and 950 employees. Dell's acquisition of SonicWall became official on May 9, 2012.

On June 20, 2016, Dell sold SonicWall (part of its Dell Software) to private equity firm Francisco Partners and Elliott Management.

1991: Brothers Sreekanth Ravi and Sudhakar Ravi founded the company under the name "Sonic Systems" to develop Ethernet and Fast Ethernet cards, hubs and bridges for the Apple market.

1990s: In the late 1990s the company released a security product initially called "Interpol" and later branded "SonicWALL", a dedicated hardware appliance with firewall and VPN software intended for the small-business market. As sales for the security appliances rapidly accelerated, the company exited the Apple add-on networking business and refocused exclusively as a network security company.

1999: In late 1999 the company changed its name from Sonic Systems to SonicWALL, Inc. to represent the shift to a network security company, and in November 1999 SonicWall went public (SNWL).